WALT WHITMAN SPEAKS
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Ever upon this stage Is acted God's calm annual drama, Gorgeous processions, songs of birds, Sunrise that fullest feeds and freshens most the soul, The heaving sea, the waves upon the shore, the musical, strong waves, The woods, the stalwart trees, the slender, tapering trees, The liliput countless armies of the grass, The heat, the showers, the measureless pasturages, The scenery of the snows, the winds' free orchestra, The stretching light-hung roof of clouds, the clear cerulean and the silvery fringes, The high dilating stars, the placid beckoning stars, The moving flocks and herds, the plains and emerald meadows, The shows of all the varied lands and all the growths and products. |
| [The Return of the Heroes] |
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Shot gold, maroon and violet, dazzling silver, emerald, fawn, The earth's whole amplitude and Nature's multiform power consign'd for once to colors; The light, the general air possess'd by them—colors till now unknown, No limit, confine—not the Western sky alone—the high meridian—North, South, all, Pure luminous color fighting the silent shadows to the last. |
| [A Prairie Sunset] |
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Ever the undiscouraged, resolute, struggling soul of man; (Have former armies fail'd? then we send fresh armies—and fresh again); Ever the grappled mysteries of all earth's ages old or new; Ever the eager eyes, hurrahs, the welcome-clapping hands, the loud applause; Ever the soul dissatisfied, curious, unconvinced at last, Struggling to-day the same—battling the same. |
| [Life] |